


untitled

by AnnetheCatDetective



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Astral Projection, M/M, No Tentacles, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-19
Updated: 2013-09-19
Packaged: 2017-12-27 01:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/972471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A radio broadcast interrupted. A host missing. An intern dead. And in the midst of it all, a scientist, resolute, aims to solve the mystery he is presented with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Interrupted

**Author's Note:**

> I've edited this a bit from its inception on tumblr, but it was inspired by a gif, and the first couple bits in their original form (with said gif) are here:  
> http://annethecatdetective.tumblr.com/post/57604897156/annethecatdetective-nonbinarycecil-so-i
> 
> This was also my very first thing I wrote for the fandom, so...

It’s clearly paint. That is the one thing that keeps Carlos’ heart from beating straight out of his chest in an aching panic. Not blood, just paint.

There are more questions than answers, though, and it takes him longer than he’d like to get them organized in his head.

One: Where is Cecil?

Two: Is Cecil all right?

No, he stops himself. Don’t ask that one yet, just don’t, save that one. Revise the questions.

One: Where is Cecil?

One B: Is Cecil all right?

Two: Did Cecil write these messages, or did someone else?

Two B: If not Cecil, who?

Three: What if

No.

He repeats the words ‘you are a scientist’, with a variety of emphases, clutching at his temples and doing his best to focus on the details of the room.

There is a key fob lying on the floor, next to an overturned office chair, and he scrambles to pick it up, cringing in distaste when it proves to be a small scorpion encased in a cabochon of acrylic. Possibly a clear resin, but he suspects acrylic. It is not a test he has to run, mercifully.

At something of a loss, and finding no sign of any interns, he leaves the strange new room he'd found in the station, evidence clutched in his hand. He holds the key itself, and not the fob, feeling out its shape.

"I will find you." He promises. He’d find the lock that this key opened, and then he’d find Cecil.

Carlos is trying to figure out what he can possibly do with the key and fob that would give him a location— he has no authority to find out where it belongs, and he does not want to incur the wrath of the Sheriff’s Secret Police…

"Police?" He says, uncertain. "I don’t know if you noticed, but— ah, Cecil’s missing, and… yeah."

Were they really even listening to him? He wasn’t sure, couldn’t be sure. But Cecil would have called, as soon as possible after a thing like this, he was sure of that.

At any rate, the Sheriff’s Secret Police make no answer. Carlos combs the empty parts of the radio station, avoiding the door to management after Cecil’s descriptions. Still no sign of Cecil or of… well, of any current intern. The microphone is unplugged in the booth, a few switches flipped in ways he thinks they shouldn’t be, but he can see no message in it.

Cecil’s chair… Cecil’s chair lies on its side, one wheel still spinning lazily, and Carlos crouches, places a hand on it and tries to understand. Surely in this time the wheel should have stopped, but he can’t make himself focus on that inconsequential mystery when faced with what may be the sign of a struggle.

"Cecil…"

"Carlos?"

He barely hears it, and at first he doesn’t turn around. It has to be his imagination. After all his searching, after the broadcast going to dead air like it had, Cecil can’t be right there. Unless he’d actually been summoned to… to speak with management, but judging by what he’s heard, that’s highly unlikely.

"Carlos, can you hear me?"

There’s a plaintive fear, and he turns. Immediately his face is twisted with horror and grief, and he drops to his knees with the force of it.

Cecil looks… Cecil looks like the opposite of a dead body, which is the best way Carlos’ mind can put it gently. There is nothing corporeal about him, and he is… he is just wrong, there is something to him that is so outside of what a living body should be. Misty and glowing and in colors, so many colors…

"Cecil." He reaches out a hand, even though he knows there can be nothing to touch. He can’t be too late, he rebels against the very notion, he can’t live in a Night Vale that does not have Cecil’s voice to make it all all right, and he does not know if he can deal with that voice being disembodied.

"Carlos, I might not have much time." Cecil— this new, awful, bodiless Cecil— says in a rush. "I’m not very good at controlling it, I’m lucky I found you at all, I just— Carlos, I’m scared. I don’t know where I am."

"Are you—?"

"I’m all right, for now… I’m not hurt, just dizzy… it’s dark here, Carlos. It smells coppery. I said ‘Police’, but they can’t hear me for some reason, Carlos, they’ve never been not able to hear! My body is… tied to a chair. Carlos, I think he killed intern Sandy."

"Wait, your body is tied to a chair?" Carlos feels invisible bands loosen from across his chest, feels himself breathe at last. Alive. Wherever Cecil is, however he is doing this, he is alive. "You don’t know where you were taken?"

"No. I think I was… drugged." Cecil wavers in the air, eyes widening. "Carlos, I don’t think I can stay with you much longer. I am not a very accomplished astral projector!"

"Wait— I have this." Carlos pulls out the key fob, holding it up. "I found it in the room in the station with all the scrawled messages saying ‘forgive me’ and—"

"Sandy."

"It’s Sandy’s?"

Cecil shakes his head. “Intern Sandy… helped him. Not on purpose.” His face screws up in concentration, he places his hands at his temples a moment. “But then it was too late. She said ‘forgive me’, here in the dark, it was the first thing I heard when I woke up. But now it smells— Carlos, it smells like blood in here, and I’m not sure I want you to see any of this, but I need you to come find me.”

"I will."

"I saw the room before the show, but… Well, I mean, it could have been anything, it could have been old, so I didn’t… I just went into the booth and forgot about it. Is that my apartment key?"

"Is it?" Carlos frowns. He’d been hoping for something that could lead him to a place. Cecil was the part of the puzzle he had. "On the creepy scorpion keychain?"

"The high school marching band was selling them as a fundraiser, so they could get to the regional band competition. They didn’t place, but they got to go… I didn’t know you thought scorpions were creepy."

Carlos feels an absurd stab of guilt at what he perceives as a mild hurt in Cecil’s voice. “I’m not a fan of… land-based arthropods.” He shrugs, self-conscious and sorry for so much more than just that. “I don’t mind the mascot suit or the logo on the shirts or any of that, but the real thing…”

"Just get rid of it, then." Cecil shakes his head, a more immediate worry taking him. "Leave it at the station and just hold onto the key? Carlos, I can’t stay, this takes concentration and I think I hear someone com—"

He flickers again, and disappears, and Carlos sags, clinging to the upturned office chair. He feels a sob threaten to escape.

After a moment, he attaches Cecil’s key to the ring with all his own, leaving the little scorpion behind. He needs help from somewhere, and if the Sheriff’s Secret Police aren’t answering, then…

Then he’ll go to his lab. He’s not sure how it will help, but it’s where he does his best thinking, and he needs to think.


	2. Discovered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Cecil is sought, and Cecil is found, and all is not quite well, and yet all is not quite terrible.

Carlos didn’t exactly expect anything to come of returning to his lab, though he carefully checked Cecil’s key for any fingerprints that weren’t either his or Cecil’s.

Not that he supposed he knew what he’d do with them if they existed— which they didn’t.

"Pull yourself together, Carlos. It’s not like you have a crime lab." He sighed.

"Did somebody say crime?" A voice floated in through his window.

"Uh… Police?" He ventured a guess. Outside, he could see the vague, sleek shape of a leather balaclava in the moonlight. "Cecil Baldwin’s been kidnapped. The radio station is a mess— I went in and there was this room, and I left and I turned around, and it was mostly normal again when I went back in, I think—"

"And what makes you think this disappearance is a kidnapping?"

"Well, he wouldn’t just leave the show abruptly, for a start." Carlos felt obliged to defend Cecil’s professionalism. "Also, he told me it was. I mean, he appeared, only not… I mean—"

"Astral projection, go on." Outside, the Secret Policeman took notes, Carlos could hear him tapping at a very tiny keyboard.

"He said he didn’t know where he was, and thought he’d been drugged. He said a girl might have been murdered, and he’s missing."

"We’ll be sure to sweep Night Vale’s city limits."

There was a sudden, disheartening thought. Carlos took a deep breath and willed his voice not to tremble. “What if he’s not in Night Vale anymore?”

There was no response.

He tried to be optimistic, under the circumstances. Surely Cecil would know if he wasn’t in Night Vale. There wasn’t enough time for him to have been taken anywhere else, even Desert Bluffs would have been too far away, unless… unless time was a lot slower in Night Vale that night than it was outside city limits, and then…

He shuddered to think. What if Cecil had been taken hours ago on the outside? But… would anyone really kidnap him and take him to Desert Bluffs, or anywhere else for that matter?

He tried to tell himself the matter was in police hands, and they were far, far better qualified. Frighteningly qualified, with all the recording equipment and black helicopters. He just couldn’t quell the niggling doubt. He’d promised to come and find him, personally. What if, in a place like Night Vale, making a promise like that out loud meant something? What if it meant no one else could find Cecil?

No. No, that was just the town getting to him. That was far too unscientific.

He paced the lab, starting when there was a rap at the door.

Outside, there was no one standing in front of the lab, but he could see the shape of that balaclava and a cape, just in the shadows by the wall.

"I thought you should know, our helicopters have spotted a new structure in the unincorporated area to the other side of the Whispering Forest." The Secret Policeman said, with an air of confidentiality.

"A new… structure?"

"If you ask me, it’s a kidnapping shack. It’s the kidnappingest shack I have ever seen in all my years of secretly policing.’

"So you’ve found him!" Carlos feels like he can breathe again after far too long.

"I’m afraid the unincorporated area is outside our jurisdiction. We would have to wait for any of the people from inside the kidnapping shack to re-enter Night Vale proper."

"Fuck— That’s just— If he could walk out of there, then he wouldn’t be kidnapped!" Carlos tugged at his hair, wheeling around to pace again. "Fuck. I’m going after him."

"That’s the spirit." The Secret Policeman smiles warmly. "Are you armed for vigilante justice, Sir, or will you be needing our services?"

Carlos did not deign to reply, striding out with his labcoat streaming behind him.

—-/-/—-

One thing tempted him, on his trip through the forest, when he actually noticed a strange chrysalis in passing— one with a human face— and had a brief urge to run some tests.

It would have to wait. Cecil needed him, and this was the most direct route. Well, he imagined it was. He admitted that he should have requested a map. It didn’t matter for long. He reached the edge of the forest at dawn, and the shack, small and unassuming and disconcertingly rusty, stood there.

How did wood rust, anyway? No time to ask those questions.

Peering through the dirty, cracked window he found yielded nothing— inside, it was dark. When his own breathing and heart quieted, though, he was able to listen. He could hear scraping, and— Cecil! He felt an intense ache at the sound of him, the sniffing, the quick, shallow breaths, all the signs of his trying not to cry, and the smell coming through the crack in the window…

He had no trouble believing that the intern was dead, and she was in there with him. Eventually his eyes sharpened enough to see Cecil when he moved, the chair he was bound to rocking, its outline illumed, but he could see no other movement, could hear no other living person.

Relieved, he shoved the door in, barely catching himself when it gave way with less force than he’d initially assumed necessary.

"Carlos!" Cecil’s voice was ragged, and sweet, possibly the sweetest sound Carlos had ever heard.

With the faint light coming in through the open door, he could make his way across the small room, and could see the heap where intern Stacy had been discarded, some of the dark, damp stain on the rough floorboards around her.

He kept his focus on Cecil, on getting him free from the chair. Cecil threw his arms around Carlos the moment they were freed, kissing him fervently.

"You found me… oh, Carlos, you wonderful, wonderful man, you came, I knew… I knew you could." His eyes were wet, and his wrists looked rubbed nearly raw when Carlos was finally able to get a look at them, and he had a dirty scrape on one cheek and blood on one trouser leg.

"You look beautiful." Carlos sighed, holding him tight. "Come on, let’s get out of here…"

He didn’t get to turn all the way around, before he heard a suspiciously shotgun-like sound, and felt Cecil freeze up in his arms. 

Carlos’ grip on Cecil tightened just a little, and he felt the tug of his lab coat tightening across his back as Cecil’s hands bunched the fabric up in nervous fistfuls, heard a whispered litany of ‘no’s in his ear, and then, ‘please not Carlos’.

He put the feelings that stirred into a mental box, because he absolutely could not deal with them while staring down the barrel of a shotgun— metaphorically, as he hadn’t turned around, and wouldn’t turn around unless ordered to— because those feelings were new and utterly terrifying, as was the way he knew all too quickly that he would die protecting Cecil if he had to.

Thinking like that was going to get him emotional and then killed, and worse, might get Cecil hurt or killed as well, so he would have to unpack those feelings later.

"Carlos."

The voice sounded delighted to see him, though how he was being recognized from behind was still a mystery, and it was clear the voice’s owner recognized him, the voice dimly familiar…

Wait…

"Dan?" Against all better judgement, Carlos whipped his head around.

He hadn’t heard anything from Dan Matthews since grad school, when he’d turned him in for plagiarism, and… No. No, even in Night Vale, that was far-fetched, and besides, how would Dan had even found him in Night Vale? This could not possibly be revenge, could it? And the thought that it was burned, Carlos felt a sudden fury. He’d done the right thing, after all! Anything that happened to Dan Matthews was Dan Matthews’ own fault! Had he really kidnapped Cecil— killed a radio station intern— over a grudge with Carlos from grad school?

"Hi." Dan smiled, teeth glinting in the faint light, an unhealthiness emanating from him. A darkness.

"No… No, no. No, this can’t—" Carlos spluttered, still shielding Cecil. Cecil, who’d already been through so much, who was even then gaping up at him wordlessly at the realization that the two knew each other. "I refuse to believe that I somehow turned you into a monster by reporting you in grad school!"

Dan laughed, which was even more unhealthy, more dark.

"Carlos, Carlos, Carlos…" He clucked. "Of course you didn’t."

"So this has nothing to do with—" Carlos began, but he was cut off by a sudden, furious outburst.

"I was always a monster!" He surged forward, but he also let the shotgun drop. It was opening enough— Carlos turned, keeping himself between Dan and Cecil, and swung.

He knew he wasn’t exactly a fighter, but it was a little dismaying just how little his punch did.

The chair breaking over the back of the man’s head, though… that did some good.

He and Cecil exchanged glances, and that was all that was needed. Dropping the legs of the smashed chair, Cecil scrambled to grab up the fallen shotgun, and Carlos stepped on Dan’s hand— hard— to keep him from getting up and getting there first.

"You were always a bad scientist!" He retorted. It was the worst thing he could think of, and incidentally, perfectly true. Dan had been sloppy, lazy, and ready, willing and eager to steal.

"Stand up." Cecil ordered. His voice trembled, but his grip on the shotgun did not. "Now walk."

They marched the kidnapper over the invisible line that marked the Sheriff’s Secret Police’s jurisdiction, where they were instantly swarmed.

"Mr. Baldwin." One of the Secret Policemen nodded. "Neither of you will be capable of leaving town until we’ve gotten statements, but you’re free to return to your homes. I suggest going the long way…"

He gave a distrustful look back towards the forest, before taking the shotgun that Cecil readily handed off, and quickly ascending a retracting line up to one of the black helicopters.

Relieved, Cecil slumped into Carlos’ arms, glancing around the shack, and towards the trees. “How did you find me here?”

"Well… the helicopters found you, really. They told me they couldn’t actually move on the unincorporated area, though, so I… I came for you." Carlos shrugged, gathering him back up into a warm embrace. "Did he hurt you?"

"I don’t think so. Nothing serious. You went to grad school with that guy?"

"Uh. Yeah. I’m not actually sure if this was… personal, or not."

"He’s from here." Cecil said distantly. "He left, and… well… he never belonged, I don’t think. He wouldn’t have left if he did, he wouldn’t have stayed gone, I mean, he… I don’t know, there was something not right about him… even when we were kids."

'Not right' by Night Vale standards did not bear thinking about, at least not yet.

"Let’s get you home." Carlos sighed. "I’ll stay with you tonight. If that’s okay, I mean."

"Oh, my Carlos…" Cecil managed a little smile, before glancing to the two equally barren and uninviting ways around the forest. "Which way did you come?"

"Through."

"Th-through?" Cecil’s eyes widened. He’d lost an intern to that forest— well, he supposed that wasn’t exactly an exclusive distinction, the station had lost interns to a lot of things, and while normally he felt it was best to let life go on and not be filled with fear over any little intern-destroying thing, the idea of Carlos going near anything dangerous was a little harder to bear.

"I had to get to you." Another shrug. "I didn’t know how much time I had."

"It didn’t try to seduce you?" Cecil hissed, casting a suspicious and slightly fearful glance towards the forest.

"I had to get to you." Carlos repeated, kissing his cheek. "And now, I have to get you home. We can go around if you like."

In the end, the Sheriff’s Secret Police obliged them with a ride back into town— to Cecil’s building, in fact.

"Oh!" Carlos fished around in his pocket, bringing out his key ring and feeling out the right one on it. "Your keychain’s at the station, but I have your key right here."

"That’s your key." Cecil smiled, glancing down at his feet, cheeks pink.

"Really?" Carlos squinted at the keys again— he had a few, but not that many, and none of them looked that much like Cecil’s… "No, no, this is the right one, this is yours."

"No, Carlos— it’s your key. To my apartment."

"Oh." Carlos grinned— laughed, just a little, and he thought after everything, he really needed to laugh, even if it wasn’t funny. "Oh. Well, thank you. Then I guess I am staying."

"I guess." Cecil nodded, leaning against Carlos’ shoulder as the other man let them both in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not wholly satisfied with the resolution, I will admit. There was no way to get in all the backstory without... I don't know, bogging down the pacing, and there was no reason for the villain of the piece to actually share his motivation that wasn't... you know, purely for me as the author to display that there was A Perfectly Good Reason For Everything (as if real life contains PERFECTLY good reasons for all things!), so... my apologies for the weaknesses.


	3. Comforted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An epilogue.

Carlos searched Cecil for cuts and bruises, trying to ignore the little smiles aimed his way whenever he inspected anything Cecil deemed ‘intimate’.

Cecil deemed an alarming percent of himself ‘intimate’, judging by the rate of frequency of the smiles.

"All right. You’re fine, though I think you should push fluids and rest all tomorrow. Please? For me. And I won’t call a doctor or anything, just… you look exhausted, and I can’t imagine you aren’t dehydrated."

Cecil nodded, taking Carlos’ hand and tenderly kissing bruised knuckles. “I’m sure station management would rather play an old recording than run the risk of the Sheriff’s Secret Police needing to talk to me during the broadcast, and there’s no telling when tomorrow they’ll find me anyway. Management hates it when Secret Police interviews interrupt broadcasts.”

"I’ll… I’ll do the same." Carlos nodded. The lab could do without him for one day. And, he had to admit he was bound to be under-hydrated himself.

He let his emotions come out of their boxes, lying in Cecil’s bed, with Cecil safe and sound curled up against his chest. All the worry about Cecil’s disappearance, how scared he’d been when he’d seen the astral projection, seen Cecil so clearly frightened.

And the pang of old hurts and new fears and stricken, awful empathy when Cecil had whispered ‘not Carlos’, and he’d had to quickly put that one away before he could think about what would happen to Cecil if he’d died. If Cecil even survived the encounter, he would be shattered…

It was safe enough to feel all that, with everything over. And to feel the immense relief that it was over.

"I can’t believe he’s from Night Vale." Carlos sighed at last. "All this time, I never knew… All this time, he could have studied all these fascinating things and instead he… He was a really bad scientist."

"Intern Stacy trusted him… until it was too late." Cecil mumbled, a slight frown to his voice. "I don’t think she knew him before he left, she’s too young. Was. I know interns die all the time and I should just let it go, but it… it bothers me that he used her like that. She didn’t mean for me to get hurt. I don’t—" His voice cracked. "I don’t understand. He was never a monster, monsters are just decent people too, he was… He wasn’t the right kind of dangerous."

He shook his head, burying his face back in Carlos’ chest, fingers curled in the neck of the tee shirt Carlos had worn to bed, stretching it out.

That was a good way of putting it, Carlos reflected. A lot of things in Night Vale were dangerous, but this didn’t feel like Night Vale danger, like Night Vale violence. He doubted he would ever get a satisfactory answer, now that the Secret Police had taken Matthews off.

"Cecil… try and forget about him for tonight. We’ll have to relive it all for the police tomorrow, so… try to rest."

"I thought he was going to hurt you."

"You have a bumper sticker that says guns don’t kill people because we’re all immune to bullets and it’s a miracle." Carlos attempted to joke, but Cecil only lifted his head to fix him with a hard stare.

"Carlos, we were in an unincorporated area." He said, with a note of reproach and horror. "It’s only a miracle inside of Night Vale."

"Cecil— Sorry. What was I thinking?"

Cecil huffed and laid his head back down over Carlos’ heart.

"Cecil… I thought I’d lose you. I really didn’t know how I’d… how I’d handle Night Vale without you, and I was scared. Okay?"

"Okay."

"I… I love you."

Cecil smiled up at him, exhausted but thrilled. “I love you.”

"I know. Believe me, you… you’re not the one who might not say it enough. I just… I want you to know."

"I know." Cecil said, his voice a soft sigh.

Carlos pulled the bedsheet over them, without the blankets— too hot, during the day, for all of them, and without the air conditioner, it would be too hot to sleep close together, but the sheet made it feel cozier, on a purely unthinking level.

He stayed awake, in spite of his own overwhelming tiredness, until he heard Cecil’s soft snore, and then he let himself go. They were safe.


End file.
